Fuel Depot Fire In Ukraine Under Control
Emergency services on June 9 contained a fuel depot fire outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, but three firemen are still missing after the blaze triggered a powerful explosion.
Top security official Oleksandr Turchynov said in a statement, "Firemen have the situation...under total control."
Turchynov said there was no longer any threat of the blaze spreading and emergency services were putting out remaining fires in the depot.
Ukrainian media reported that one person died in hospital after being hurt in the incident and several others were injured. Three firemen were unaccounted for after the explosion ripped through the area as they battled the fire.
The fire at the depot near Vasylkiv, 30 kilometers from Kyiv, burned overnight and by morning had spread to at least 16 supply tanks, most of them storing gasoline.
Interior Ministry official Zoryan Shkiryak said police were investigating three possible causes of the fire: "violations of fuel storage regulations, technical malfunctions, or arson."
The depot's owners said they suspected arson.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
Lone Russian Lawmaker To Oppose Crimean Annexation Faces Fraud Probe
By RFE/RL
Russia's Investigative Committee says it has launched a criminal inquiry against Ilya Ponomaryov, the lone State Duma representative to vote against the 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
Ponomaryov, a member of the A Just Russia party, is accused of embezzling money earmarked for the Skolkovo science and technology park project outside Moscow.
Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said on June 9 that since Ponomaryov was currently residing outside Russia, the committee planned to seek an international arrest warrant for him.
In April, Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, voted to strip Ponomaryov's immunity from prosecution.
Lawmakers from A Just Russia announced on June 8 that they had begun the process of stripping Ponomaryov of his parliamentary mandate.
Sergei Mironov, leader of the party's parliamentary faction, told reporters in Moscow that the move had nothing to do with the charges faced by Ponomaryov, but with the fact that Ponomaryov had not attended parliamentary sessions since September.
In August 2014, Ponomaryov was reported to be living in the United States, prompting Russian authorities that month to freeze the lawmaker's bank accounts and to announce that he would not be allowed to return to Russia.
He is believed to be living in California.
Authorities accuse Ponomaryov, one of a handful of opposition lawmakers in the State Duma, of embezzling some 22 million rubles (about $393,000) earmarked for the Skolkovo technology hub.
Ponomaryov denies wrongdoing and says the embezzlement allegations are politically motivated.
In April, Ponomaryov told RFE/RL that he did not plan to apply for political asylum in any foreign country.
"I do not intend to become a political emigre," Ponomaryov said. "I ended up here [in the United States] against my will. They intentionally waited until I was abroad on business to close the border to me. I am a Russian citizen. I am a deputy from Novosibirsk and I intend to remain such in the future."
Ponomaryov was the only Duma member to vote in March 2014 against a treaty to annex Crimea from Ukraine, preventing a unanimous show of support in the 450-member body.
The vote paved the way for the Crimean Peninsula to be absorbed by Russia, a contentious move that has not been recognized by the international community.
He told RFE/RL that he voted "absolutely correctly and would vote in exactly the same way again." (w/ RFE/RL's Russian Service and Interfax)
Crimean Tatar Leader Says TV Station To Be Russian 'Propaganda Tool'
By Merhat Sharipzhan
Russia will establish a Crimean Tatar broadcasting company to replace TV and radio stations shut down by the Moscow-controlled government this spring, but a senior leader of the annexed peninsula's Muslim ethnic minority dismissed the initiative as a bid to create a "propaganda tool."
In an order issued on June 9, the Moscow-backed government that controls Crimea said the Public Crimean Tatar Television and Radio Corporation (OKKT) must be registered by July 1.
It said the regional State Commission for Nationalities will help establish the new broadcaster and will supervise its activities.
The corporation's main goals were described as "production and distribution of television and radio programs providing thorough and multifaceted coverage of social, political, economic, and cultural activities of the Republic of Crimea...mainly in the Crimean Tatar language."
The Kremlin-backed head of the Crimean government, Sergei Aksyonov, told a cabinet session that the broadcaster will be funded by the federal government in Moscow, which he said has allocated 177 million rubles ($3.2 million) for the purpose.
"The issue of the public Crimean Tatar television is a major goal for the Ministry of Communication and Information," Aksyonov said.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, after deploying troops to secure key sites and staging a secession referendum dismissed by Kyiv, the United States, the European Union, and about 100 UN member states as illegitimate.
Rights groups and Western governments say Crimean Tatars, who largely opposed the annexation, have faced oppression, intimidation, and abuse since Russia's takeover.
The Russian authorities announced plans for a new TV and radio company shortly after the only independent television channel broadcasting in the Crimean Tatar language, ATR, was forced to shut down and stopped operating on April 1.
ATR's programs and those of its several affililiates went off the air after Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor rejected several attempts by the company to register under Russian law, citing various technicalities.
Refat Chubarov, the leader of the Crimean Tatar Mejlis, told RFE/RL that the new broadcaster in the Crimean Tatar language will be "another propaganda tool for the occupiers in Crimea."
"What they are creating is a media outlet fully controlled by the illegal government of annexed Crimea," Chubarov said in a telephone interview. "They have promised to set up a new -- what they have called -- 'public' television and radio corporation. However, the corporation will be fully controlled by their Committee for Nationalities. What can you expect from a state-controlled media outlet?"
The Mejlis, the Crimean Tatars' self-governing body, was evicted from its premises in the Crimean capital, Simferopol, after a raid by the Russian authorities in September, and its members now meet on mainland Ukraine.
Chubarov has been barred from Russia, and the Russian authorities in Crimea recently said he is being investigated on suspicion of separatism.
On March 31, Amnesty International called the Crimean Tatar media outlets' de facto closure "a blatant attack on freedom of expression, dressed-up as an administrative procedure" and "a crude attempt to stifle independent media, gag dissenting voices, and intimidate the Crimean Tatar community."
With reporting by the Crimean Desk of RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
